the next big thing is king

Success has many fathers. “Rahul loves to say that there were at least 20 people who have discovered Shubman Gill,” Vikram Rathour chuckles about India‘s new Test captain over a phone call early in June.

He’s quoting former India captain and head coach Rahul Dravid, with whom he worked as part of the team’s coaching group earlier this decade. Rathour remembers well the impression Gill made on him when he saw him during India’s 2020-21 tour of Australia: he was special. It was a common reaction among most who saw Gill around then.

“Whoever you met, they kept saying, ‘I saw him and I think he’s going to play for India,'” Rathour says. “He had that kind of skill. The moment you looked at him, you knew this kid is special.

“Great technique. Looked really assured. Had a lot of time when he was batting. The balance he had on the crease, the way he moved, his temperament… He practised really hard, great work ethics, very coachable. Would come and discuss his cricket all the time. Very confident kid.”

That Australia tour was the second time Rathour had been impressed by Gill. In 2018, the young batter scored a century for Punjab in the Vijay Hazare Trophy against Himachal Pradesh, whose coach Rathour was then.

Rathour, who is from Punjab, like Gill, came to know the youngster well. The two spoke in their native Punjabi, having open and in-depth conversations that offered Rathour a peek into Gill’s mindset and an insight into the qualities that made him stand out.

Behind every successful lad: Gill’s parents show off his Player of the Tournament trophy from the 2018 U-19 World Cup

Anil Dayal / © Hindustan Times/Getty Images

Rathour says he loves to talk with young players about their in-game strategies. “A lot of people don’t understand their game plans. For them, their method is their game plan. What I mean is that if somebody is a stroke-player, they keep talking about ‘playing my shots’, but that cannot be your game plan. That’s the way you bat. What if the conditions are [such that] you cannot play your shots? Are you able to change your game? Are you able to adapt?

“And [Gill] had that clarity from the beginning. It is about adaptability. He has a way of playing. He loves to score runs and stay positive. But he knew that in different conditions, different situations, he’ll need to change his game, bat differently.”

After the win in that 2020-21 series in Australia, in an interview to ESPNcricinfo, Rathour singled out Gill’s clarity of thought as being vital in Ajinkya Rahane’s team chasing down the target of 328 at Australia’s most formidable Test venue, Brisbane. If Rishabh Pant sealed the triumph with a memorable, undefeated 89, it was Gill who set it up with a masterful 91, during which he pulled Mitchell Starc for a belligerent six just after lunch on the fifth day. It was only the third Test of Gill’s career. Rathour speaks of being in awe at Gill’s intent and clear-headedness, and his ability to execute his plans effectively.

India, Rathour says, started the day aiming to save the game with all three results on the cards. Gill negotiated a short-ball barrage a few overs before lunch with assurance. India’s head coach, Ravi Shastri, asked Rathour to have a chat with Gill at the break.

“I asked him, ‘So what are you thinking? They are looking to bowl short to you,'” Rathour says. “And the kid had a great answer. He said that the end Starc was bowling, it was a shorter boundary on the leg side. So he said, ‘I’m not going to pull from the other end if they bowl short, but I will pull from the end Starc is bowling if they bowl short, because I’m pretty sure that I can clear this boundary most times. If it’s below my shoulder, I’ll look to play it down, but if it’s up, I’ll look to play it over, and if it’s on this [on] side, I will leave. And if it’s on this [off] side, I will maybe play an uppercut.'”

Rathour laughs. “I told him, ‘Boss, you have it sorted. So do just that, whatever you want to do.” He had a lot of clarity [about] what he was looking to do. And with logic – he was not just talking nonsense, he was not bluffing his way.”

Former India batting coach Vikram Rathour on seeing Gill for the first time: “The moment you looked at him, you knew this kid is special”

Munir Uz Zaman / © AFP/Getty Images

“My job is to make you play for India once”
One day in around 2007, former Punjab and India allrounder Gurkeerat Mann walked out of the PCA Stadium in Mohali towards his car, parked in the C ground, which functioned as a parking lot and nets space for the Mohali Cricket Association’s academy. He was stopped in his tracks by the sight of a boy batting in the nets. He asked a man standing by, “Who’s this kid?” in Punjabi. “He’s my son,” came the answer.

Lakhwinder Singh Gill and Mann struck up a rapport as they realised they both hailed from Fazilka district on the border with Pakistan. Mann went on to be a friend of the family and one of Gill’s best friends.

The story of Lakhwinder, a farmer, moving from his village, Chak Jaimal Singh Wala, to Chandigarh so his son could have a cricket career, is well known. Gill was enrolled in the academy, just outside the Mohali ground. Mann, who was captain of Mohali district then, started to take an active interest in Gill’s progress. The youngster started to face bowlers much older than him and grew to be able to handle bowling of all kinds.

Mann, who is nine years older than Gill, credits Lakhwinder for giving his son a solid foundation in the cricketing basics. “Uncle has always loved cricket. He would watch international players on TV and help his son [imitate them]. It didn’t matter to him that he was raw in his coaching methods, but he made sure that Shubman batted in the nets for hours – about four to five hours regularly.”

Lakhwinder, Mann says, had a certain zidd (stubbornness) to get his son to play strokes that at time felt impossible to the boy. “Take the short-arm jab that Shubman plays like a pull. I used to think it was very difficult. Even Shubman, at times, would say it was not possible to play.” Lakhwinder would insist he kept at it, practising over and over. “Lagega. Tu kar, kar, kar.” (It will come. Keep doing it)

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Sanjay Manjrekar: Gill has nothing to lose as captain

“You normally see shots not being hit in certain areas,” Mann says. “But Shubman plays [them]. That is why he is different. That zidd, hard work, determination – both of the father and son – is the reason.”

Gill’s ambitions have at times been dwarfed by those of his father for him. Lakhwinder has been an unsparing critic of even his son’s smallest errors. During the 2014 ML Markan Trophy, the Punjab inter-district tournament, 14-year-old Gill, playing for Mohali, scored 351 in a record 587-run partnership with Nirmal Singh against Amritsar. Lakhwinder recalled what he said about that game when he spoke to the Indian Express in 2019 after Gill was picked for the first time for India. “‘You should have batted with patience for the last four balls and 400 was yours,’ I told him after the knock. As a kid, he loved batting and it was the only rash shot he played that day. He faced 272 balls and hit 49 boundaries.”

In January 2023, after he won the Player-of-the-Series award for his scintillating form against New Zealand, which included 112 in Indore in the final ODI of the three-match series, Gill told head coach Dravid that his dad would not be happy because he got out with 22 overs still remaining in the innings.

Mann says he has been witness to plenty of times when father and son have gone at each other. “Shubman analyses himself a lot as it is, so when his dad says something critical, he at times has hit back, saying, ‘Yaar, as it is I am angry at myself and you [Lakhwinder] are now piling on,'” Be that as it may, father and son have worked hard and hand in hand for the latter’s advancement, to achieve the dream of Gill playing for India. Lakhwinder saw it as his job to get his son there. “‘Ek baar tu India khel ja, phir to main retire hoon,'” [You play for India once, then I will retire] Mann remembers Lakhwinder saying more than once.

The dream was realised when Gill made his ODI debut in 2019, and two years later, when he played his first Test, in Melbourne on the 2020-21 Australia tour.

Through Gill’s rise, Mann has been a friend, older brother, captain and room-mate. He even played the role of tutor. “There was this time, possibly in 2014,” he says, “when I wanted Shubman to come and play a famous invitation cricket tournament in Dehradun. Uncle was sceptical about him missing school. Shubman had exams coming up. I told him I would handle his studies too. I have a picture somewhere which I sent to Shubman’s family, with books in front of us,” he laughs. The two would hit the books for an hour every day, trying to make sure Gill did not fail school. Mann knew he would have to answer to Lakhwinder if that happened.

Gill’s inner circle, Mann says, has remained more or less the same all through his life, and it is a close-knit group of family and friends. “He has always been caring with those close to him. He will ensure he keeps in touch with those that matter, even if it just a call. These are qualities of a leader.”

Mann speaks about how Gill has always had his priorities straight, never compromising on his two hours of batting and one of gym daily. The intensity of cricket and life at large for an international player of Gill’s stature is deeply demanding. Add the attention from the media – social and traditional – and it is impossible to succeed without a “balanced head”, Mann says.

A captain who has learned to project calm
Soon after the 2023 IPL ended, India allrounder Hardik Pandya told Gujarat Titans, whom he captained in their first two seasons in the league, that he was moving back to his IPL alma mater, Mumbai Indians. Titans’ head coach Ashish Nehra and the rest of the coaching staff decided Gill was the best choice to lead the franchise, though Afghanistan great Rashid Khan, who had been Hardik’s deputy, was a contender for the job. Gill, Hardik and Rashid were among the first players drafted by Titans when they came into the IPL, and Gill had formed a successful bond with Nehra, Vikram Solanki, Titans’ director for cricket, Gary Kirsten, the assistant coach then, and the franchise management at large.

Once Hardik’s departure was confirmed, Nehra had Gill and Solanki over to his house in Goa. During their conversation, which lasted several hours, Gill was open to taking on the captaincy, Nehra says. “I don’t think it was a big surprise for him also. He was happy and willing.” Nehra says.

Why did Gill seem the right choice for captain? “He has always been a very keen learner of the game, very calm, and he knows how to go about his business,” Nehra says. “For captaincy you need to be calm, and in T20s you need more calmness and Shubi has that. Plus, somebody who is looking forward to play in all three formats.”

In 2024, his first season of captaincy at Titans, Gill took some time to settle into the role. Nehra attributes this to him being mentally occupied with not getting picked for India for the T20 World Cup. In this year’s IPL, where Titans lost in the eliminator, Nehra describes Gill as being “way, way more stable and in a happy space”.

Scream when you’re winning: Gill in an IPL game during his first season as captain of Gujarat Titans

Sajjad Hussain / © AFP/Getty Images

Despite the 20-year age difference between the two of them, Nehra says Gill and he are “95-99%” on the same page always. During their chats this IPL, Nehra says they spoke of the intricacies of captaining bowlers, which can often be a challenge for batter-captains. “We have spoken about how important it is to understand what the bowlers think rather than how you [the captain] think,” Nehra says. “At times he has told me, ‘I was controlling [my emotions] when I see the bowler is doing something wrong, or his thinking is wrong.’ If Shubi is thinking on those lines, that is a great thing.”

How does Gill approach dealing with failure, another important aspect of cricket and captaincy? Dravid says that as a batter, Gill’s reaction is like those of many: to hit training right away and sort out deficiencies and flaws. As a captain, too, he is not easily flustered by setbacks, Dravid says. “He is generally a calm character. It’s not easy to not get stressed when things aren’t going your way, but he’s good at not displaying that emotion too much, which should help him when he captains. That ability to keep his emotions in check, I guess he’s getting better and better at it.”

The spinner R Sai Kishore, who was among the key performers for Titans in this year’s IPL, describes Gill as being among the smartest thinkers he has come across in the game. “He is one of those rare cricketers who is not only mentally good but also skilfully good.”

Sai Kishore, who is himself a captain, of Tamil Nadu, has something of a reputation as a thinking captain. Does he relate to how Gill has improved as a leader in the last two IPL seasons?

“As a young captain sometimes, what happens is, while you might have all the heart and resources, your instincts might not guide you in the right way because you’ve not seen that situation before. As for the challenges, it might be that because he is such a prolific run-scorer, sometimes thinking about the team can drain your energy. I feel managing that is the most crucial thing, and Shubman has been able to do that really well. His runs haven’t gone down because he is leading the team.”

Nehra believes the growth of Gill and his success as a batter in white-ball cricket, especially in the ODI World Cup in 2023 and this year’s Champions Trophy, as well as at Titans have helped his self-confidence. “The big difference between the last two seasons is, he is aware he is a certain pick and he is going to open for India. So I am not surprised at all at the way he is moving forward. He is a run machine and his work ethics are superb.”

Sai Kishore says Gill’s absence was felt this IPL during the defeat in a crucial match to Rajasthan Royals at home, when 14-year-old Vaibhav Suryavanshi smashed an audacious 35-ball century to mow down Titans’ target with ease. Back spasms forced Gill to sub himself out for the second innings. Sai Kishore thinks that if Gill had been around, the Titans bowlers would likely have handled the pressure differently. “The messaging and directions about what the batsman was trying to do and what the bowler could do would’ve been much clearer, I felt.”

The Test captaincy was handed to Gill last month. Dravid and Nehra agree he has been gearing up for the job for a while now.

“In his short career, I’ve always got the impression that he’s not closed, he’s looking to learn,” Dravid says. “He understands how important he is in a lot of ways. There’s been so much of talk about him being the next [captain] that he’s already had some time to think about this. He just shows you that he’s willing to grow and he’s willing to get better, whether it’s his batting or with leadership so far. That’s a really good trait.”

Rathour believes the captaincy has come to Gill at the right time, saying the leadership experience Gill has accumulated at Titans will have helped him counter the tunnel vision that batters often develop about their craft, in favour of focusing better on the team.

A batter who asks questions
Among Gill’s virtues, Mann and Rathour say, is the ability to be honest about his shortcomings. Despite his obvious ability, questions about his place in the Test side continued to swirl as late as 2024, when Ben Stokes’ England arrived for a five-match series. “All of us could see that he has the ability, but he was not really executing or scoring those big runs that everybody was expecting,” Rathour says.

Gujarat Titans head coach Ashish Nehra describes Gill as “a very keen learner of the game, very calm, and he knows how to go about his business”

Indranil Mukherjee / © AFP/Getty Images

“He loves to discuss, he loves to debate. He’s not somebody who will just say yes to whatever you are saying or will get offended if you challenge him. I would always challenge him on his adaptability [to different conditions], or [when] the situation of the game requires you to play differently. ‘Are you up for it or not?'”

One such conversation was shortly after Gill got out after scoring a century in the third innings of the second Test, in Vishakhapatnam, of that England series, as India were setting a target. Gill was on 104 with the tea interval round the corner when he attempted unsuccessfully to reverse-sweep offspinner Shoaib Bashir, gloving behind. Back in the dressing room a while later, Rathour asked him what the shot was about.

Gill challenged the coach with his perspective. “He said, ‘You keep telling us to sweep and reverse-sweep on wickets that are turning, and this wicket was turning, so square of the wicket is where the runs were. And that’s what I was looking to do,'” Rathour says. “Then I asked if the timing of the reverse sweep was right. What did the team need at the time? We needed you to build on that partnership and you could really have batted them out of the game. So was that shot really required at that time for one run – because there was a deep point placed?”

Gill was firm that the shot was on, and also that he had practised it. Rathour responded that it was not that other top batters around the world couldn’t play those shots, but that there was no need to play that shot at that stage. “So that was interesting because I could see that penny dropping,” Rathour says, “and after that he played an outstanding knock in Ranchi.”

For Dravid, who watched Gill bat in Vizag sitting next to Rathour in the dressing room, the innings is one of his two favourites by Gill during his time as coach. The other one was when Gill stood up to Shaheen Afridi and dominated his duel with him in the semi-final of the Under-19 World Cup in 2018, making 102.

Dravid says Gill willingly played ugly to succeed in Vizag, when India were under pressure. “We were two [wickets] down, we’d just lost a Test in Hyderabad, so we knew we needed a good third innings. He had a bit of a lucky escape – he was not going to take a review [he looked plumb against Tom Hartley when on four off six balls], Shreyas [Iyer] pushed him to take it. Shubman was under extreme pressure [due to] lack of form, but he came in and put in an absolutely brilliant hundred to help us get ahead in that game. He was scratchy at best initially, but the willingness to fight through that, the willingness to score ugly runs – because he can look so good and so fluent, sometimes there’s been a small criticism that he’s not willing to score the ugly runs.”

The next big thing: Gill during a 2019 interview

Gokul VS / © Hindustan Times/Getty Images

Dravid thinks Gill showed “tremendous maturity” to counter a difficult slow, low, turning pitch in Ranchi and score a match-winning 52 in the second innings, where he and Dhruv Jurel sealed the series in India’s favour. That Ranchi innings, where he “played and played and played”, according to Rathour (his strike rate was 42) marked a significant change of approach because earlier in the series Gill had had the chat with Rathour where he said that as a stroke-player he needed to be looking to play shots so he could go at a certain tempo while building his innings. To which Rathour had replied saying that unless he played differently, he wouldn’t know he could adapt if the situation arose.

Rathour describes Gill as highly competitive, using the Punjabi word “rondu”, the literal meaning of which amounts to “someone who cries over little things”. In the sense in which Rathour uses it, it is a credit to Gill’s fighting spirit and his constant yearning to win. “If he is playing foot-volley during the warm-ups, you’ll see him fighting all the time,” Rathour says. “‘Fighting’ meaning complaining, or cheating with the score here and there, or shouting, no, this was the score or that was the score, or this is out or this is in. So you could see that he wants to win. He’s very competitive in that way.”

Batter, captain, museum-goer
As a person, Gill can be reserved, Nehra says, if he doesn’t know you well. In the company of those he is comfortable with, he can be cheeky. This March, at Titans’ first press conference of the season, Nehra said he didn’t want the mic passed to him, not wanting to speak since he was not a player. Gill responded, “Paaji, tussi bhi khel hi rahe ho” (You are playing anyway) in a reference to Nehra’s hyperactive style during games, when he is seen pacing the boundary line, always in the ear of his players on the field.

Gill became a recognisable face quickly after he excelled at the 2018 Under-19 World Cup where he was the Player of the Tournament. These days he is among cricket’s crème de la crème – fashionable, given to putting up striking images of himself, accompanied with punchlines, on his Instagram. When Ed Sheeran visited India this April, Gill hung out with him, bantering for the cameras, taught him some Hindi, and answered “No” when Sheeran asked if he had a girlfriend.

Gill has grown more fluent in English than when he started out in cricket, and Mann confirms his friend has been polishing his speaking skills by watching English-language TV series to build familiarity with the language.

In an interview Gill spoke about how when he goes to a new place, he finds one way to relate to it is by experiencing the local culture. He has expressed an interest in art and architecture, and once, he said a favourite quote that he has never forgotten is, “Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth,” by Marcus Aurelius, the Roman emperor and philosopher.

Last year Mann was in London to play the World Cricket Legends tournament and Gill happened to also be there at the time. “He says to me, ‘Paaji, museum jaake aana hain.‘ ]Let’s go to the museum] I stared at him. I was in disbelief because most of us around him I don’t think have ever gone to a museum,” Mann says, laughing.

Gill has a desire, you sense, to become a well-rounded individual. Dravid thinks it is a natural process of growth. “You can see that he’s grown as a person as well, because the depth and level of some of these conversations, even those outside of cricket, has certainly changed,” he says. “He is genuinely inquisitive about a lot of other things. There’ve been some really good conversations over the years, and especially in my time as India coach, without actually being sit-down formal kind of conversations. There’s been some conversations that I really enjoyed with him, and it tells you that he’s kind of really growing as a person and trying to figure out his place and how to deal with the spotlight, because it almost feels like he’s always been in the spotlight from a young age. And that comes with its challenges. But he’s discovering himself and he’s happy to chat about some of those things once you get to know him, and once I think he can feel comfortable with you.”

India’s youngest captain this century
June 20, 2025 will be among the biggest moments in Gill’s life, when he made his Test captaincy debut.

Having grown up in the era of Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma, Gill has been influenced by those two iconic players and their leadership – as pointed out by England great Jos Buttler, Gill’s team-mate at Titans.

Dravid cautions people against judging Gill’s captaincy right away, especially comparing him with other captains. More generous would be to give Gill the time and space to allow him to find his leadership footing and evolve, he says. “And, of course, he’s going to need his players to perform, and a lot of times a captain is honestly as good as his bowling attack, and I think that will be the key, right? If India can put together a bowling attack that can take 20 wickets, like they’ve done over the last decade, then that will give him some breathing space.”

His advice to Gill is straightforward. “All I’d say is the simple stuff: control what you can control, which starts with recognising that you are a batsman in the team as well, and your runs matter. So you’ve got to try and get that box ticked off as much as you possibly can. And then, don’t take – at least try as much as you possibly can, however difficult it is – too many of those results personally.”

When he walked out to toss on Friday at Headingley, Gill, became the third Sikh to lead India after Bishan Bedi and Jasprit Bumrah, the 37th man to lead India in Tests. Of the 12 to have captained this century, he is the youngest. Mann says when he met Gill in Chandigarh before he left for England, he was aware of the size of the responsibility he was taking on – and he was ready. As for the Gill family, “They are so happy because playing for India is one thing,” Mann says. “This is another level – leading India.”

Nagraj Gollapudi is news editor at ESPNcricinfo

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